Augustine on Humility, Ecclesiastical Authority, and Pastoral Service
©2026 Victor R. Claveau, MJ Table of Contents Introduction Saint Augustine of Hippo taught that humility is the foundation of Christian life and especially necessary for Church leaders. He repeatedly warned bishops, priests, monks, and scholars against pride, ambition, and spiritual arrogance. According to Augustine, ecclesiastical authority exists for service rather than domination. Clergy who […]
What is the Forgotten Virtue?
Father Kilian McGowan, C.P. The poet Wordsworth once wrote that the “best portion of a good man’s life” is “his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” In his famous Canticle of Charity (Corinthians, Chapter 13) Saint Paul named it as one of the foremost daughters of charity: “Charity…is kind,” he wrote. Kindness is like a […]
What in the World is Love?: A Reflection for the Young
DOUG MCMANAMAN Being clear about the difference between genuine love and those other loves that are less stable can go a long way in maximizing a person’s chances of having a successful marriage. It is interesting that so many young people think of love as something inexpressible and unknowable in itself, as if it is […]
Vision and Virtue
WILLIAM KILPATRICK At the very end of The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha speaks to the youngsters who love him: “My dear children … You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for life in after years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home. People […]
Virtue of Religion
Of the three proposed derivations of the word “religion”, that suggested by Lactantius and endorsed by St. Augustine seems perhaps to accord better with the idea than the others. He says it comes from religare, to bind. Thus it would mean the bond uniting man to God. The notion of it commonly accepted among theologians is […]
Virtue and Hypocrisy
DONALD DEMARCO The notion that “virtue is hypocrisy” is a curious one. Surely hypocrisy, the mere pretense of virtue, is not itself a virtue. We do well to avoid hypocrisy. But the way to avoid this universally detested vice is precisely through virtue. When Fyodor Dostoevsky submitted Crime and Punishment for publication, he included a brief synopsis […]
Values, Virtues, and John Paul II
Thomas D. Williams Copyright (c) 1997 First Things 72 (April 1997): 29-32. Few words can rival “values” for popular appeal in the 1990s. Heightened awareness of the link between cultural problems and moral irresponsibility has spawned a nearly universal condemnation of the “war on values” being waged in American society. Politicians of every stripe and […]
“Values” and “Virtues”: A Modern Confusion
IAIN T. BENSON Much of our learning and education is to learn what words mean and the power of words as everyone, for good or ill, has learned through history, is an extremely important power to command. But what has happened in the modern age is that many of our key terms have been either […]
The Virtuous Life Is Worth Living: Real Men Choose Virtue
TIM GRAY The virtues give us a blueprint for being a man. Indeed, the very term virtue comes from the Latin word for man, vir. For the ancients, to be manly was to be virtuous. The term virtue in Latin (virtus) signifies power, strength, and ability. The virtues give us a blueprint for being a man. […]
The Virtue of Unselfishness
DONALD DEMARCO The story is told of a Chinese hero who acted with remarkable unselfishness during an earthquake. From the vantage of his hilltop farm, he noticed the ocean swiftly withdraw, like some prodigious animal crouching before a leap. He knew that the leap soon to take place would be a tidal wave. At the […]